Defence anticipated rise in insider attack

THE Australian Defence Force (ADF) anticipated the rise in "insider attacks" in Afghanistan well before the first of four attacks which killed seven Australians and wounded 10, Defence chief General David Hurley says.

But General Hurley said such incidents, also known as "green on blue" attacks in which Afghan soldiers turn their weapons on their Australian comrades, were very difficult to counter.

He said these attacks on Australians, the first occurring in May 2011 and the most recent last August, played very heavily on the ADF over the last year.

"But frankly we could see this coming over two or three years," he told an Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) function in Canberra.

General Hurley said this started about 2010, with members of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) opening fire on American and British troops.

"In my conversations with the Pakistan military, for example, over the last couple of years, they were quite clear - this will be a Taliban tactic," he said.

General Hurley said the ANSF expanded quickly to 350,000 and getting proper vetting processes in place took time.

As well, he said intelligence around insider attacks was not as precise as when dealing with a known enemy.

"It is very difficult to know what any person in this room thinks they are going to do when they wake up in the morning. And that's what you are asking us to do," he said.

General Hurley said these attacks didn't necessarily occur because the perpetrator was Taliban.

"It may because they got out of bed grumpy and don't like you westerners. It may be as simple as that. It's been a quite difficult thing for us to counter. We have worked very hard to do so."

A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites.